Nixon & Colson on Soviet Union summit and Vietnam War

0:23Those who are interested and who will follow through what you said are still going to get more than they've gotten out of the King of Kings because of the press.
0:27Because we read every line of it.
0:29So to us, it seems...
0:31which you're not saying at all, but not to the public.
0:37It reinforced their impression.
0:39In fact, to me, it just capped off the trip beautifully.
0:42And it is not overkill to do it that way, provided the press didn't panic.
0:50And the press didn't panic.
0:51The press, the TV commentators, the only thing was on the fact that they were NPCs, which is minor.
0:58The rest of it was superior.
1:02But I think you did absolutely the right thing.
1:04I think you'll do the right thing now if you take a good rest with not much physicality because I think the public want to think that you are resting after that kind of a trip.
1:15I don't think they... Yeah, what I understand, I don't know what you got off, is the fact that they gave you the suspension and how long I had to be talking.
1:23Once you get into the gun?
1:24Yeah.
1:25When she found it, graciously, it was just.
1:28Did they head out immediately?
1:29Oh, yes.
1:30And they never stopped applauding.
1:31All eyes, the Senate members stood up and they were looking up, steady applause as she came in.
1:38She was very, very gracious.
1:40She looked at us.
1:42She thought of which everybody made a point of in the commentaries.
1:47I'm impressed.
1:48Now, her accomplishments abroad have been...
1:54Unbelievable.
1:55She just, those goddamn press people are so impressive.
2:00She does it better than anybody that's ever done it in that job.
2:03Patty Kennedy once went abroad and spoke French and that, and of course they had the whole press with her anyway, and she was a glamorous person.
2:10And old Eleanor, you know, was Eleanor.
2:13And maybe didn't do anything that needed to be fast.
2:18And Mrs. Johnson is smart as hell, but... Well, it was a good thing.
2:22She did a good thing, but she basically came here as a two-party woman.
2:28But the stuff that she's not doing now in these countries abroad has any...
2:36Okay, that's...
2:38They pull them back.
2:40They go...
2:40They push the people out of the way.
2:43It's a big deal.
2:44Well, she's definitely not a senior citizen.
2:46She was on television last night with the police trying to hold her back.
2:50And she said, no, I want to talk to the people.
2:55And she just, she was absolutely superb throughout the entire trip.
2:59I wish there were a place that we could get her in September.
3:03I think she does a hell of a lot for us.
3:05I think that does a lot of them.
3:07Oh, enormous.
3:08See, I'm in these meetings with the Kremlin.
3:10I would sit in that goddamn lousy Kremlin for eight days.
3:16It was like a prison.
3:17Like a prison, except for just short movements.
3:19All the meetings were held there, too.
3:20We found out now.
3:22That whole period of time.
3:25So they never saw me.
3:26Which isn't bad either, in a way.
3:30No.
3:31They sure got the impression it was a work in business, though.
3:33Nobody raised any question on that, did they?
3:35No.
3:36And as I said, the whiskey, it was enough uncertainty about the agreements and the prices that nobody had the idea that it was just going to be something that started in the ocean.
3:49One regret that I had is, in some way, I had a little talk I made with the Russian people
3:57Well, you had two things.
3:58First, you had that little story, which now I think will become a major story, a tiny story.
4:07was a very moving story for the Russians.
4:09It had to be for Americans, and it kept the whole damn thing about what peace is all about.
4:15That's right.
4:15Rather than the damn peace next to it, they don't really... You see, the average peacemaker doesn't think of the people.
4:22It's only a theory.
4:23The idealist.
4:23That thing was quite a moving thing.
4:26Well, what you had...
4:27It was carried, I understand, in some... CBS took it up again.
4:31But you had two things.
4:32First, you had...
4:35Surprisingly, 10 million people rated on Sunday to see it, which is very, very high.
4:40Then you had 13 million who saw the CBS special, and that be some of the last.
4:49And then you had fantastically good news coverage of that, because we call them networks, and ABC ran almost the full thing on their network news Sunday night.
4:58They ran six minutes of the speech.
5:01And the Tanya thing.
5:02We also had the whole text reprinted and almost all of his figures.
5:06Then there was a profile of Tanya that appeared in the New York Times.
5:10It was.
5:10Oh, yes.
5:11It's great.
5:11Showed the picture and showed the dates and then it took the excerpts from your speech.
5:16And it was very well done.
5:18And that ran around the country, the whole Times syndicate carried it.
5:22And then there was reference to it again on Monday, I think.
5:24So I think we, I think he got a much bigger audience than he did.
5:27Thank you.
5:37It played very well.
5:38CBS used 11 minutes of it, Monday night, but the whole ending on Sunday.
5:48And there were a lot of comments about that.
5:51That carried for about two days, that speech.
5:54Enormously effective.
5:58And the editorials, of course, and the reporting from this trip, for the first time, there was a
6:06great deal of personalizing being in the media, both television and print, that what a tremendous thing that this is that President Nixon has done.
6:20What a tremendous personal diplomacy, what a skill, what courage, what vision the President has.
6:29The President deserves credit.
6:31There's a lot more that's actually true this time.
6:34Those will never come along.
6:36I must say, I read that history.
6:37It's basically a double play, which couldn't work without either of them.
6:44Nobody else did it.
6:44Christ, the Cavs people didn't understand.
6:47They didn't understand whatever the safety department was.
6:54They didn't mark bad.
6:55I think it's just out of their ballpark.
6:57Out of their league.
7:00Well, this is pretty true.
7:01This is what happened.
7:04We redid it.
7:05We did it all right on this time.
7:12Three years ago.
7:13It was a pretty big job.
7:14Yeah, sure.
7:15I'll say it was.
7:15But the comments have been of different quality to the crowning achievements of Howard K. Smith, the crowning glory of Richard Nixon's magnificent career,
7:29And you've had front page articles which really are notorious and extraordinary.
7:44And it's favorable.
7:45I haven't seen, you know, I've read every lie in the news that we're waiting to attack somebody.
7:49You'll get something out of it, but now we have to divide.
7:53Like, I've had to come out for strong defense.
7:55That'll make some of the police next work.
7:59And that's not the peace.
8:01That's some of the strong defense.
8:02People will say, why the hell is he for an ADN that's not hitting our suburbs?
8:06We're going to build anything.
8:07But nevertheless, you can divide.
8:08But that's the way the thing goes.
8:09but I mean that we got through two trips actually well I mean three actions that helped China trip and then the main decision probably which was to really have an effect such as such as we hadn't ever realized I mean that really got me focused so you think you know ever since that war has been going pretty well
8:35And it would have lost him now.
8:39The reporting, Mr. President, I must say, Al David, before you were gone, did a magnificent job.
8:46We had a couple of backgrounders that he handled it well.
8:48He arranged for you to get on the race and get stuff coming out of Vietnam.
8:53The story is, I find it hard to believe.
8:57You just keep seeing North Vietnam failures and the success of it.
9:02Every day, we have had strong, strong pieces coming out of here.
9:10Oh, they're doing it.
9:11Every day.
9:13We've had this week, let's see, I think it's Bradshaw, the senator who's over there, who reports to me, both wire services and all three networks have been carrying stories about the effectiveness of the mine, of smart bombs that were using the laser-controlled bombs, which
9:33It was terribly effective to get that out, because that drew the comparison between now and 66, and showed the pictures of the bridges down.
9:41Tremendously good photographs.
9:45The clear impression that you get following the Vietnam news is that the South Vietnamese are winning the war, or we're winning the war.
9:51We're destroying the North.
9:53In fact, there was an Ora Kelly piece this week which said that what a horrible thing we are doing to North Vietnam.
9:58We're destroying it.
10:00If this keeps on another month, the country is destroyed.
10:05He's a very erratic reporter.
10:09The point is that it's clear, as the news comes back, and they did a bang-up job when you were gone.
10:22The news comes back that we really have done a job of naval gunfire, bombing the mines.
10:30No ships have gotten in.
10:32Oh, shit, they'll never get in.
10:33Good, they'll get in.
10:34They'll be sunk.
10:35Except that they haven't been able to organize for an attack, that their own leadership is paralyzed.
10:42They also have not been able to organize an attack on us at all.
10:46That's true.
10:46It's his own, isn't it?
10:48Oh, God.
10:48We couldn't get them to bring the end of the war amendment.
10:51The Case Church, they do a record vote.
10:54We wanted them to because we wanted them to.
10:56They wouldn't bring it to a record vote.
10:57They defeated it by voice note.
10:58Why not?
10:59Well, there wasn't one of those guys who wanted to stand up and vote against you.
11:03That showed you the intensity of the threats, wasn't it?
11:06Clark McGregor went up to try to work them into getting an idiot.
11:10He worked at it with Bill Phillips, trying to get them into the record vote so we could get these bastards who were voting against the country while you were abroad.
11:19Yeah.
11:20And not a lot of them.
11:22There was nobody.
11:23They just went through with it, beat it on a voice vote, and a foreign aid authorization came through without an idiot.
11:29Well, you remember we won that sea strike, the bird event, was it 48th or 43rd?
11:3943rd.
11:40They couldn't get enough people to have a roll call, those this week, on the passage of the final night.
11:48And that's in two weeks.
11:51Totally confused about it.
11:52Demonstrated to have been able to put on nothing.
15:28I couldn't see, that's empty.
15:29I couldn't go there.
15:33I didn't see anything.
15:33Which exit was it?
15:34That's there.
15:35We paid not much, not support.
15:40Oh, yes.
15:45Well, maybe there's some way to get him invited over here at some point, but that's really what Crowe, I think, would want.
15:50Well, I think you could do that.
15:52I didn't try to talk to him about it.
16:07Of course, the contrast is present in the viewer, seeing you on television in the very, the marvelous grand receptions, Poland, Iran, the great coverage of Mrs. Nixon, the very historic agreements being signed.
16:24The contrast of that with Governor Humphrey has just been absolutely vivid.
19:42Well, I'm going to cut off all A's.
19:46We're chunking favors now.
19:50Harris' coalition of all, 75 to 10, the people would rather stay and fight in Vietnam than abandon the Vietnam War.
19:59And by 45 to 38, oppose any coalition government.
20:01He said the hawkish sentiment is that he's about to fight with us.
20:06The hawkish sentiment is coming back to us wrong now.
20:08People begin to sense that...
20:11We're doing pretty damn well, but American casualties are down, which they are.
20:17I mean, 10 this week, that's not... That's all the help.
20:2110 is less than 20, than 30, frankly, is.
20:25Well, anything under 100, people don't think there's a war going on.
20:29That is true.
20:29And, you know, 19 Americans killed last week.
20:31They're used to hearing about 25 killed on automobiles on a weekend.
20:36They're safe.
20:36I mean, it's a...
20:37Just that the numbers, the word is depersonalized.
20:40As long as the recording continues as it is, you have total freedom on this issue.
20:46We don't know.
20:53What do you want to do?
20:56Do you want to decimate that god-damned place?
20:58So that when we get out, it's up to the Vietnamese to look themselves for what?
21:06Are Vietnamese going to get real hurt today?
21:09It's about time.
21:09So it should have been done years ago.
21:11Well, this is the Indian who we read in reports.
21:13My God, they've lost all their tanks in the Central Highlands.
21:16They hit.
21:18The Ho Chi Minh Trail is now underway.
21:20They've got a hell of a lot of equipment.
21:21They can't get back up that trail.
21:23The South Vietnamese really put the steam on them, and they're apparently using the Marines very effectively from one area to the next.
21:31This could set them back years in terms of being able to ever do this again.
21:35If they gambled, then you wouldn't dare react.
21:40Of course, the American press would get down on the rest of us.
21:43We'd have to keep dying.
21:47You know, our little exercise of making the meat probe has had a hell of an impact.
21:52Has it?
21:52Yes.
21:53I'd be saving it.
21:53I'll send you a memo.
21:55But I would say we've had about 10 who have said we were wrong, including, God, including Cal.
22:07Everybody was predicting disaster, doomsday, when the president made his decision on May 9th.
22:12But look at what's happened.
22:14And the critics were wrong.
22:16And his detractors were wrong.
22:18And even Kel said I was wrong.
22:20I think he said I was wrong, in my case.
22:23We sent their statements to all our editors and broadcasters and... Good.
22:28...wrote them letters and said, aren't you going to have... And the squeals?
22:32Yeah, quite a few.
22:34Yeah.
22:34They couldn't squeal about their statements, though, did they?
22:37No.
22:37What they did was to swallow them.
22:38I'll give them some credit for this to happen.
22:42It stuck it to them and they...
22:43Credibility.
22:44Credibility, exactly.
22:47That's the thing that really has them concerned.
22:51And when you've got a good one like this, we can make some real, real points.
22:58And I think we did this one.
23:02Wallace is not doing well, as I gave you in the first.
23:05No, I haven't.
23:07It's a physical condition.
23:10Yes, sir.
23:10What's that?
23:11Well, it's a collapse of the abdominal walls and the infection that is right next to it.
23:18Well, we have current, current, current, current.
23:22What the hell, did the doctors do well?
23:28The doctors did well, but the, and when you have a bullet in that position, you can't get it out, you can't get infections, and he said severe infections.
23:39Nobody has seen him, I heard that.
23:40We're closing off the three heads.
23:42The, nobody's been living with the three heads, have they?
23:47I talked to Dr. Ward last night, who's been checking with the president, and he said that he yesterday had an improvement for the first day, but three days they thought he was slipping away from it.
24:00They still consider his condition precarious, but getting better.
24:05They obviously now, however, because of the severe infection, cannot operate until it heals.
24:12He is not responding to any antibiotic treatments and
24:17So they have to rely on body strength to repel the infection, which is very questionable.
24:23It's interesting.
33:48If I had time, I was here.

Nixon & Colson on Soviet Union summit and Vietnam War

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Also recorded on June 2, 1972

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